Walks through Spain, Italy and other places

Costamezzana to Sivizzano ( and mud)

Today we continued south towards the Appenines up the valley of the river Taro. We’ve left the broad acre farms of the rich Po valley and we’re starting to see more fruit trees and vines.

The signs pointing the way are very hit and miss – varying from very good to non existent. Luckily I purchased the excellent maps by Monica D’Atti and Franco Cinti. If you buy the maps they will kindly send you the accompanying GPS data.

Yesterday I got chatting with a man in a little village. He offered to fill our water bottles and I took off my backpack and followed him. A bit later a little old lady who had been sitting in the sun came over and gave me my GPS which I’d dropped on the road ! Close call with disaster ! Now it stays in my pocket not clipped to my belt.

I find I’m chatting more and more with people along the road who never seem surprised that an foreigner speaks fluent Italian . Today a man pulled up on his bicycle and asked ‘Siete Pelegrini ?’ Are you pilgrims ? ‘Bravissimi !’ And shook our hands.

A women pulled up on the road to have a chat for 10 minutes about what we were doing.

My feet were a lot better today. I lost a whole layer of skin after fording those two freezing streams. And today – another ford. This one was very muddy, in fact I sunk down half way to the knees and got my pants filthy.